


The Die is Cast

by littlehollyleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Episode: s05e04 The End, Future Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-19
Updated: 2010-04-19
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:46:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9139588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlehollyleaf/pseuds/littlehollyleaf
Summary: Prequel toDo You Know Who's Playin'?Lucifer tracks down Gabriel with a proposition and Gabriel gets a glimpse of what the future might hold for him if he accepts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [](http://hils.livejournal.com/profile)[hils](http://hils.livejournal.com/) for the beta :)

This story is sponsered by [](http://vichan.livejournal.com/profile)[**vichan**](http://vichan.livejournal.com/) 's fic [Reflections of You](http://vichan.livejournal.com/394634.html) (also set in the The End universe, and in a way that ended up _far_ more believable than my attempt, damn it :p) and also [](http://veggie17.livejournal.com/profile)[**veggie17**](http://veggie17.livejournal.com/)'s [Never is a Promise](http://veggie17.livejournal.com/18041.html), which shows Michael perfectly for what he is - Lucifer under a different name.

 

 

**The die is cast**

 

Gabriel's just finished up a neat little trick involving a temporary gender swap for a particularly abusive, misogynistic telesales representative, so he's feeling pretty pleased with himself, thank you very much. Enough to pull a few hundred dollar notes out of the air for the cross-legged beggar outside the company building as he leaves, while his handiwork is dragged into an ambulance beside them, raving about period pains and bra sizes.

He makes himself less 'executive businessman' and more 'non-descript bystander' as he walks - suit and tie melting into a faded green windbreaker and T-shirt, designer pants and leather shoes switching to jeans and sneakers - and chuckles. The guy's _face_ when he looked down at his breasts for the first time and screamed. It's moments like that that remind him why he went into the Trickster trade in the first place.

He's just reaching for the Hershey bar he's about to materialise in his inside pocket when he feels it. _Beautypowerglory_.

And it stops him dead, because it's been _millennia_ since he felt that.

He turns his head.

There's an alleyway stretching out to right. A dumpster full of rotting food and scurrying rats. A bashed up telephone box.

And Lucifer Morningstar, watching him from the shadows.

It's a while before Gabriel even notices the other's vessel, the glare from Lucifer's tarnished grace is blinding. Once his angelic senses have become accustom to the brotherly light again - after so long without any to equal his own it's a hard and painful process - it's clear why his younger sibling is having trouble. The guy he's chosen is practically bursting at the seams trying to contain Lucifer's essence - his skin is already peeling from the effort, worn away so it's almost translucent.

It leaves Gabriel with a weird sense of pride for his own well-kept physical form, although he doubts this will impress his brother. Lucifer never had much time for the physical.

"Hey, little brother," Gabriel grins. No point pretending. Lucifer wouldn't be here if he didn't already know the truth. A Trickster has no place in the war he's waging. "Long time."

Lucifer tilts his head, eyes trailing slowly up and down the older angel's body.

"Gabriel," he says, and Gabriel feels another flash of superiority because the word is stilted, spoken by someone still unfamiliar with human language. "You've... changed."

_You haven't_ , Gabriel thinks, but he doesn't let the thought drop his smile.

"Yup," he agrees. "Pretty retro, don't ya think?"

Lucifer just stares and that's when Gabriel's grin fades. _Jeeze._ And he'd thought Castiel had been a killjoy.

"The others don't know," Lucifer surmises.

"Kinda the point," Gabriel shrugs. "Though as exiles go I admit it lacks your style."

"You left willingly," the other continues, keeping unnaturally still. The piercing stare makes Gabriel fidget enough for both of them and he's shamefully aware how ridiculous the movement is, how foolish he's being finding comfort in such pointless shifts. His time on earth has taught him bad habits. "Why?"

Gabriel shrugs again.

"Got tired of it," he mutters, stepping inside the alley himself and moving past Lucifer to examine the crumbling mortar between the bricks beside them.

Just for something to do.

He's not especially keen on going into the ins and outs of his extended leave of absence from home. Not when it's been torn from him already so recently, and by a couple of clowns who really shouldn't have been able to best him. Again.

He still can't figure what was worse about that - Dean's repugnant righteous indignation, boy would Michael have been proud of that, or the _two_ pairs of puppy dogs accompanying it. Although, with all respect to Cas, he hadn't come _close_ to the younger Winchester. That was twice now little Sammy had made it under his skin with his 'feel my pain' eyes and infuriating devotion to his older brother. Although - _fuck it_ \- Gabriel was starting to wonder if there was more to it than that. A touch of envy, perhaps. The indifference wafting off the angel behind him certainly formed a strong contrast.

"You're not afraid of retribution? From our father?" Lucifer presses.

Gabriel dips his head back without turning, shooting a mocking look at the sky.

"Didn't you get the memo?" he scoffs. "Dad's gone fishing. Indefinitely."

Lucifer chuckles - cold and humourless - and Gabriel thinks maybe his brother has an adequate grasp of humanity after all, he's just choosing not to use it.

"Yes. And what is there for a messenger when they no longer have a message?"

Gabriel scowls. No one's called him a messenger in years. _Centuries_. It's one of the many things he left behind, _chose_ to leave behind. He's no lapdog for an absent, unknowable presence any more, he has his own life, his own messages. The independence was hard won and he's not going to stand by and let it be mocked, particularly not by the poster boy for angelic free thinking.

"Can we get this over with please?" he snaps, spinning round.

Tiny particles of skin flake away at the corners of Lucifer's eyes as he narrows them.

"You didn't track me down just to catch up and reminisce about old times," Gabriel continues, and if the words sound bitter well... that's just his Trickster persona bleeding through. "Ask me what you came to ask and leave me alone."

His brother gives him a thin smile.

"They never gave you the respect you deserved, Gabriel," he says softly. "So much wasted potential. I always knew you could be more..."

Gabriel rolls his eyes and waves a hand, dismissing.

"Save the pitch, Lucy. I heard it the first time."

"But maybe now you're not dogging Michael's every step you'll _listen_ ," Lucifer counters, voice turning sharp.

Gabriel sucks in a slow breath through his nose and stills. Because there's a power building inside his brother now, glorious and wild. A power he knows he can't match, no one ever could. He suspects even Michael just got lucky that time. There's a danger here. He shouldn't forget that.

"You want freedom. I understand that... I can _give you_ that," Lucifer continues and his voice sounds light again. A human might even think it casual but Gabriel can sense the awful weight behind the words. So much will rest on his response and already half of him is aching to give the answer Lucifer wants, so desperate to prove his love and ease the newly weeping gash left in his soul as he watched his family cast their sibling aside.

How frustrating, that he should have stepped from carefree to burdened so quickly, and after running from the responsibility for so long. All his hard work, undone in an instance, rendered meaningless. It makes him wonder - if Lucifer can draw him in so easily, was he ever free at all?

The younger angel steps forward. Slowly. So fucking slow and precise. An elegance Gabriel has always envied. Thinks, in truth, all of the archangels do.

Lucifer lifts a hand and ghosts it down the side of Gabriel's face, not close enough to touch but enough to brush against the pulse of energy emitted by Gabriel's homespun vessel. Enough to expose the name 'trickster' woven throughout it and all the absent spaces that had once exclaimed 'angel.'

"You wish to be a god, brother?" Lucifer whispers, and just for a moment Gabriel feels a touch of shame curl around his disguise. But he hadn't... it wasn't like that. He'd chosen the form for its suitability not... not for anything else.

"Join me," Lucifer continues. Gabriel has been expecting it, and yet, somehow, the request still comes out of the blue.

And the addition gives the older angel chills - not because Lucifer dares to make it, but because there is no doubt it is _true_.

"And you can."

Gabriel doesn't answer. He's trying not to admit it, even to himself, but he's a little too overwhelmed at having Lucifer not only back but _so close_. And so _tempting_ , always so tempting...

"I would not lie to you," the other presses, mistaking Gabriel's silence for disbelief, perhaps. Or dispelling the thought before it can form. "But if you don't believe me, see for yourself. You still have power enough for that. To see the possibilities, all the future has to offer. Look, Gabriel. And see what I've seen. The things we can accomplish..."

So Gabriel looks. He looks past the washed out grey eyes of his brother's vessel. Past the burning fire of Lucifer's grace. Past the noise and bustle of the city around them and into the very twists of time itself. It's not hard to find his own fraying strand amidst the knot but it feels strange to follow it. He's cut and re-tied so many - not least Dean Winchester's singed and blackening thread - but never his own. It's easy to see the future Lucifer means though - his cord is thin and sharp like wire, fixing those around it in position, and cutting at any veering off course. Gabriel imagines their lines converging, his own twisting around Lucifer's all the way to the end...

***

"Please, Gabriel, let me."

"No, _I'm_ next!"

"Gabriel, you promised _I_ could..."

"Gabriel..."

" _Gabriel._ "

Gabriel sighed, relaxed and content, as the soft, feminine voices melded together. He smiled beneath his closed lashes.

"Ladies, ladies," he hummed, blinking his eyes open and shifting his hands higher behind his head so he could better see the group of scantily clad women surrounding his velvet couch. "There's plenty of me to go round."

The women stopped their squabbling and turned in unison with a chorus of titters and smiles.

Gabriel had been feeling nostalgic that morning so they were decked in Roman garb - satiny white fabric with gold clasps at the shoulders, bare legs and tan sandals. Two of them also held large bay leaves the archangel had bid them fan him with before the argument began and somewhere behind him a nightingale was singing through the bars of an ornate golden cage hanging from the ceiling.

The only concession to the theme was that instead of grapes the girl nearest Gabriel's right held a platter of chocolate covered profiteroles neatly arranged in a pyramid.

Gabriel had even fabricated a toga for himself for the occasion and as he pondered which beauty to accept he twisted a finger idly through his hair and drew a crown of laurels there. As he did so a pair of lithe, pale arms slid down his shoulders and a perfectly manicured hand sporting deep crimson nail varnish played with the scarab broach on his left shoulder.

"Pick one of the Barbie dolls if you want," a voice whispered smoothly in his ear. "But you know where to go if you _really_ want a good time."

Gabriel's smile grew wider and he twisted his head, eyes finding first a pair of ruby red lips, then a pair of smouldering, heavily lined eyes, lids powered with gold.

"Ah, Delilah..." he breathed, shifting a little to take in the rest of the woman's outfit as she stepped obligingly back for him. Unlike the others this girl was strikingly modern - shining black-heeled boots, fishnet stockings and a leather corset with matching underwear. She had her scorching red hair pulled tightly into a bun but Gabriel found he disapproved of that and so in the blink of an eye it was tumbling down her shoulders. As an after thought he placed a black leather whip in her hands. "You know you're my favourite," he continued, lowering his voice. "But I keep picking you, the other girls will get jealous..."

"Let them..." Delilah answered, trailing a hand seductively down the line of her cleavage, which was undeniably impressive by any standard, even an angel's.

Then the nightingale's song cut off mid-chirp and the other girls gasped and backed away.

Gabriel scowled.

"You've killed my bird," he muttered without turning.

"To get your attention," a new voice replied, youthful yet somehow ancient at the same time. The overall effect sounded off, as if the voice didn't fully match its owner. "I tried knocking like you suggested, but your palace door resisted the pressure. In fact, your whole dwelling seems to be... unstable..."

Gabriel sat up and twisted round, grinning again.

"That's cos it's made of gingerbread," he explained, eyes sparkling. "Something I'm trying. You know, there's this story humans tell their children about two lost kids and -"

"I have no interest in human stories," Lucifer interrupted, stepping away from the golden cage with its fallen nightingale and into the light from the window behind it.

The sunbeam seemed pale in comparison to the crisp, almost luminous, white suit neatly hugging Sam Winchester's body. Gabriel had admired the choice at first, approving of the showmanship. But after the first year it got old, and the Trickster in him couldn't help thinking of his brother as an out-of-date comedian, refusing to change his act.

But with the power to force his audience to keep watching regardless.

"We need to talk," Lucifer pressed. "I trust I am not..." He glanced at the women with the kind of disdain Sam himself would never have been capable of. "Interrupting."

The light vanished from Gabriel's eyes and his grin faded.

"No..." he sighed. Then he caught Delilah's eye and his lips flickered up again in one corner. "But you're lucky you weren't five minutes later or you might have walked in on something you'd have _thoroughly_ disapproved of. Right, sweetheart?"

He winked at the girl and she smirked gamely back.

"I really don't have time for these games, Gabriel," Lucifer pressed with a shake of his head.

He turned towards the window, waving a hand behind him, and just like that the women were gone.

"Hey!" Gabriel protested, jumping up and scrambling beside his brother, toga morphing into a more favoured outfit of jeans, T-shirt and jacket on the way, laurels dropping to the floor. "I wasn't done with those!"

"You can always make more," Lucifer responded without interest, gazing through the glassless opening. The window frame was white and rounded with a pattern of brown lines across it, remarkably like icing decorated with chocolate.

"You don't get it," Gabriel insisted. "I'd been crafting them for months. They had personalities, idiosyncrasies, everything. They were a work of _art_. Now I'll have to start from scratch."

Lucifer turned his head, a single crease forming between Sam's eyebrows, and Gabriel reflected that a display of confusion like that really should have made him more Sam-like, considering how anxious the kid used to look all the time. It didn't though. In fact, he seemed less like Sam Winchester than ever.

"If it's carnal pleasures you desire, you have the whole of humanity itself at your disposal," Lucifer stated. "Why persist with these fantasies?"

"I don't know if you've noticed," Gabriel started back. "But it's not exactly _paradise_ out there." He nodded through the window where, beyond Gabriel's personal vivid green lawn with its water fountain and croquet garden, a scattering of derelict buildings and rubble-filled streets stretched out towards the horizon. "Having your world ravaged by an incurable virus tends to _upset_ people. And it's hard to have a good time with anyone when they're either crying all the time or spitting curses every other word, you know?"

"So fashion their minds into something more suitable."

Gabriel turned to the windowsill with a roll of his eyes.

"Takes all the fun out of it," he answered, reaching forward to break off a handful of the white and brown frame. He started munching on the end in an attempt to distract from the sulk he could feel starting up.

"I need you to deliver a message for me," Lucifer said, dismissing the subject altogether.

Gabriel snorted.

"To who? There's no one left."

He tried not to wince as he said it, but the void left by his brothers and sisters when they'd finally fled the battlefield and left Lucifer to his own devices still hurt to think about. Although, admittedly, it was nowhere near as painful as it had been feeling them _leave_ , one by one. He'd even considered, briefly, trying to follow them, but had decided against it in the end - because while the others _might_ have been hesitant to take him back after his extended shore leave, an allegiance with the enemy was unforgivable. Michael would have had him court-martialed the second he entered ranks.

"No," Lucifer corrected, looking back through the window. "There's one."

Gabriel scoffed.

"We already know where _he_ stands."

"I want you to ask him again."

The older angel frowned and lowered his chunk of icing to focus on Lucifer properly for the first time since his arrival.

"Why?" he asked slowly.

"Because he and his incorrigible band of rebels are going to attempt to assassinate me. Very soon," Lucifer answered. "And I am not without mercy, brother, you know that. I want him to know I offered a second chance."

Gabriel was silent as he took in his brother's words. Then he turned to lean against the crumbling window frame, merging his broken piece back into place beneath his palms.

"They've never tried a direct attack before. Why now?"

"Because I intend to arrange... incentive," Lucifer responded, voice silky smooth. Gabriel glanced over to see him reach inside his jacket and draw out a sleek, brightly polished pistol. A colt.

Lucifer ran his fingers down the barrel, apparently admiring the feel. He didn't notice the flash of distaste that passed over his fellow archangel's face.

"Their deeds are becoming known to the general population," Lucifer continued. "The people are developing 'hope.' It's time to end it, once and for all."

Gabriel sniffed and looked back to the horizon.

"It won't be easy," he muttered. "They've got wards all over the camp, I won't be able to get close."

Lucifer turned to him with a thin, familiar smile. One Gabriel knew all too well, but couldn't help thinking was completely alien on Sam Winchester's face. He thought a lot of Lucifer's expressions looked wrong on Sam, actually. It was why he'd starting avoiding the younger angel as much as possible since Detroit. Lucifer hadn't complained yet.

"Then it will be a challenge for you, Gabriel," he answered. "Perhaps you will find it... fun."

The last word held the same patronising twang an aging Principal might give a kindergartener who found pleasure rolling in the mud.

And with that, he was gone.

Gabriel stared at the empty space Lucifer had left for a moment, then stepped over to the golden cage with its dead nightingale. He lifted the latch on the door and reached a hand inside, delicately lifting the bird out.

Cupping his hands together with the nightingale inside he raised them to his lips and blew softly over the lifeless creature's feathers. The bird sat up at once with a bright chirp and Gabriel promptly stretched his hands out the window and parted them, letting the nightingale fly free.

He watched as it reached the edge of his lawn, flapped about across the outskirts in a series of wide circles, before gliding swiftly back through the window and into its cage.

"Good point," Gabriel told the bird as it started to sing again.

***

  
As it turned out, Gabriel couldn't have been more wrong. It was a perfectly simple thing luring Castiel away from his replacement garrison; all the archangel needed was the right kind of bait.

The beaming but vacant smile the fledgling gave as he ducked through the torn and hanging piece of fabric acting as the shack's makeshift door was almost painful.

The room was a simple affair - bare wooden walls and floor, the latter covered with a collection of rugs and blankets. There was no furniture, but the far right-hand corner housed a variety of miscellaneous items - silver spoons, discarded hypodermics and a small wooden chest with an iron lock.

Sitting cross-legged with her back against the wall nearest these assortments was a slim, pale woman with long dark hair tied into a messy knot above her head. She wore a very loose and coarse plaid shirt with faded green and white vertical lines and a pair of worn and fraying jeans. Her feet were bare.

She opened her eyes from what appeared to be deep meditation as Castiel stepped inside and glanced up at him, gaze sombre.

"You asked to see me?" Castiel said.

The girl eyed him up and down.

"And you came," she answered.

Castiel kept smiling.

"I was told you had something to offer me."

The woman regarded him a moment longer, eyes softening at the corners. Then she took a breath and pushed away from the wall, twisting towards the chest beside her. She drew a key from somewhere in the folds of her top and slipped it in the lock, shifting onto her knees to turn it. It opened with a swift but heavy click, suggesting it was old but well used, and she put a hand in at once. A brief rattle later and she was turning round, an unlabelled plastic pot full of red-tinted pills in her hand. She held it out.

Castiel's eyes seemed almost focused as he looked the pot over, lips sucked in with anticipation. He gave the offering a cursory glance only before dropping down beside the girl and taking it from her hands.

He popped the lid without a second thought, but paused as a brief flash of crimson mist rose up from inside and curled into nothing before his eyes.

He looked up with a grin.

"Lady, I'm already in your debt. This is exquisite. You must be very talented..." He lifted the pot in a toast, shook a couple of the pills into his palm and knocked them back immediately.

The woman fell to her haunches to watch him.

"Oh, I have many talents alright..." she muttered.

Castiel closed his eyes as he swallowed and breathed in deep through his nose, smile dropping as he savoured the flavour. After a while he nodded in satisfaction, blinked his eyes open and replaced the lid. He held the pot back to the woman, returning the rest of its contents. But she shook her head.

"No, they're all for you."

Castiel's lips parted in surprise.

"That's a lot of work you're giving up," he noted. "What do you expect in return?"

The woman flicked her eyes up and down him again and a slight smile touched her lips.

She leant forward, took the pot from Castiel's hands - her own delicate fingers trailing over his calloused ones - and placed it carefully on the floor beside them. Then she ran a finger down the inside of the unbuttoned flap of the angel's own hippy-like blue shirt, gazing up seductively through her lashes.

"I hoped... we could work something out," she murmured, lips ghosting the stubble on Castiel's cheeks.

Castiel's mouth curved down in a brief 'why not' expression, before he pulled back to flash another empty smile.

"I'm sure we can..."

But the girl gripped his shirt tight, suddenly stern.

"I was thinking something special," she said, voice lowering. "I've got toys..."

She raised an eyebrow, daring, but Castiel just shrugged.

"Whatever does it for you," he answered. "Whips, ropes, knives... it's all the same to me."

The girl let him go, brow knotting with a mixture of shock and disgust.

"Really? You'd just... give yourself? Just like that?"

Castiel shrugged again and stretched his arms above his head, fingers linking together as he cricked his neck - limbering up.

"Sure," he replied, dropping his arms again. "It's the end of the world. What does it matter? And it's not like I've got much saved up. I've already lost everything there is to lose, so..." Another grin. "What's your name?"

The girl blinked, thrown by the question.

"Does it matter?" she asked eventually and with a hint of reproach.

Castiel looked down, eyes shining as his lips curved with what seemed to be the first genuine show of amusement since his arrival, accepting, or even _relishing_ the criticism.

"No," he confessed. "But some girls like to be asked. No guarantees it's the one I'm gonna use, though."

He pursed his lips, holding back laughter. Wholly unrepentant.

The girl paused. Then shook her head, breathing out a laugh of her own.

"Okay, sure... whatever..."

Castiel swayed forward and caught her eye.

"So," he breathed against her cheek. "Will you tell me?"

The girl licked her lips and took a breath of her own.

"Gabrielle," she said. "It's Gabrielle."

Castiel grinned some more and leant closer, lips hovering over the girl's slighter ones.

"Well, Gabri-"

He cut off and blinked, holding her gaze, and a long minute passed. For her part 'Gabrielle' didn't move either, other than to quirk an eyebrow.

Then Castiel burst out laughing. It was a bitter, scratchy sound.

He fell back and shook his head, eyes down.

"How far were you planning to take this?"

The woman's voice deepened, tone mocking.

"Oh, all the way, baby."

As Castiel raised his head, Gabriel's more familiar form filled out the green and white shirt, the girl's messy hair dissolving into his shorter mop of dark locks.

It was a cheap trick, all things considered, but it was so long since he'd bothered with one that Gabriel couldn't help gloating in triumph, grin reaching almost ear to ear at seeing his brother realise he'd been fooled. And there was a moment too, when Castiel's eyes flashed back at him, mindless grin dipping to a simple curve in one corner in appreciation. A moment Gabriel relished, because the Cas of old sure wouldn't have had enough sense of humour to appreciate the gag and the archangel couldn't remember the last time he'd felt a connection to... well... anyone, least of all family.

Only soon after Castiel's eyes trailed back down to the pot still resting beside them.

"Are the drugs real?" he asked, eyes snapping up again, and Gabriel's smile fell, just a little.

He told himself it was disappointment. He was disappointed in Castiel for fostering such an addiction, for losing his self-respect so badly. But there was a tight, twisting feeling deep in his grace telling him it was more than that, telling him it was more like pity, more like compassion.

He ignored it and pressed on.

"You're feeling them, aren't you?" he smiled by way of response. Castiel's lips curved again in cat-like satisfaction and he reached a hand to the pot. Gabriel caught his wrist. "But I can offer you something better," he added.

Castiel shook his head, smile twisting into mockery.

"Don't lie, Gabriel," he said, flicking the archangel's hand away and drawing back, the precious pot stowed quickly into his jeans. "We both know you can't offer me anything. Tell your puppet-master the answer's still 'no.'"

Gabriel scowled.

"Hey, I'm no-one's puppet," he protested.

"I'm sorry," Castiel answered, sounding anything but. "Would you prefer 'lapdog'?"

The older angel blinked, wondering where on earth his little brother had learnt to talk back like that. Then he realised the answer was so obvious he really shouldn't have been surprised.

"Cas -" he started, but Castiel was pressing on.

"Lucifer already knows where I stand. I made myself perfectly clear the last time he sent you. Nothing's changed."

Gabriel had never been speechless before and he found the few seconds following Castiel's statement something of a novelty, enough that it took him a few seconds more to realise Castiel had pushed to his feet and was making for the doorway.

"Nothing's changed?" he repeated, incredulous, as he scrambled up himself and pulled his brother back by the shoulder. "Have you _seen_ yourself lately? You're falling apart!" He lifted his hand from Castiel's shoulder and waved it up and down the younger angel for emphasis. Castiel just watched, eyes following the gesture not with the lack of expression he'd once been famous for but with a look that was genuinely and unquestionably _bored_. "You're fading away inside a piece of meat that's wearing you instead of the other way round, when there's a _palace_ less than two blocks down with a room with your name on it! Or, fuck it, a place of your own if you'd prefer. All you have to do is say the word. One word and you're an angel again. Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

Castiel waited a beat, and Gabriel could see he'd got to him by the way the other angel bit down on his bottom lip, thinking the words over. Gabriel was surprised to find an energy building inside himself in response, surprised to learn that he _wanted_ Castiel to agree, _wanted_ to bring an ally with him when he left. A companion. A friend.

Once again, Castiel disappointed.

He shook his head. Slow at first, then wider and more certain.

"Nothing you can say will make me betray my friends."

Castiel was still half stoned - the words probably didn't mean anything. Were probably no more than a mantra he was using to get by. But they still made Gabriel _mad_. Couldn't the kid see he was trying to _help_ him?

"Oh, come _on_!" he snapped, eyes lifting in frustration. "Those people aren't your _friends_." Castiel's expression hardened and he turned back to the doorway, but Gabriel was standing across it and blocking him in a blink. "Seriously," he pressed. "You think any of them truly gives a damn about you? You used to be helpful, now you're just a novelty. Why do you stay with them, Castiel? Really, what's in it for you?"

Castiel just glared at him, but it was a mask, that was all. Gabriel knew a lot about those, enough to recognise when someone was trying to hide from the truth. Besides which, it crumbled after a second and Castiel looked down, a hint of shame reddening his cheeks. Shame, or... embarrassment. An awkwardness of old Gabriel remembered from those x-rated scenes he'd trapped the kid in once, lifetimes ago when TV was still for entertainment. Back when Dean Winchester had still been naïve enough to preach about free will and defying destiny. Gabriel still remembered that last look - not angry, but disgusted - and how Castiel had trailed after the hunter without a word.

That was when it clicked.

"Oh, it's... it's _him?_ " Gabriel stated. "For real?" Castiel's silence was proof enough and Gabriel whistled. "He must be a _really_ good lay..."

"He's a righteous man," Castiel answered, words muttered to the ground.

Gabriel shook his head, no longer angry or incredulous but... There was a part of him that wanted to think 'heartbroken,' but that would have meant admitting part of his heart was still connected to the broken creature before him, that part of him still cared.  
  
"You're kidding me?" he mocked instead. "Oh, brother, _wake **up**_. Maybe five years ago he had something. Maybe. But not since Croatoan went global. Not since Detroit. Face it, the Dean Winchester you knew died with his brother. You're chasing the shadow of a fallen man."

Castiel nodded and Gabriel refused to acknowledge the warm rush that followed the gesture and the thought that perhaps it meant the kid was coming round to his thinking after all.

"Perhaps," Castiel admitted, but the victory came with a catch that Gabriel saw at once in the shine of his brother's eyes as he met the older angel's gaze. The watered blue bubbled and boiled for a moment and Castiel seemed almost himself again. "But I find that preferable to living in the shadow of no man at all."

Gabriel sighed through his nose and pursed his lips, readying for a second attempt. Castiel's biting words stopped him.

"Go back to your castle, Gabriel," he spat. "Run away and make believe you're a king, or a god, but don't you dare lecture me on my delusions when it's you who taught me to craft them."

Gabriel froze.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Castiel leant forward till their noses were brushing, like with 'Gabrielle' before, only this time it wasn't anywhere close to being funny. This time Gabriel felt a strange, _frightening_ , sensation shiver through him and it seemed, just for a second - or was it an eternity? - that the world, the _universe,_ had dropped far far out of his control.

"It means, take the log from your own eye, before seeing to the speck in your brother's," Castiel quoted. It took Gabriel much longer than it should have to place the words and by the time he had Castiel had already pushed past him and under the flap of fabric. "Goodbye, Gabriel," he called over his shoulder.

The words were lost quickly in the harsh, dry wind outside, leaving Gabriel alone.

***

Gabriel reported his failure to Lucifer, who accepted Castiel's response without comment - a stillness and silence the ex-Trickster decided was just plain _wrong_ worn by excitable Sammy Winchester - and that should have been the end of it.

Except... days turned into weeks, turned into months and, no matter how hard he tried, Gabriel couldn't re-make his harem. Or rather, he could shape them fine, and dress them up pretty as anything - but they couldn't fuck for shit. Or talk. Or tempt. They were just lifeless. Fake and unappealing. Even the few guys he tried - a rare pleasure he usually saved only for special occasions, since intense connections with men, however fleeting, tended to remind too much of the lost bond once shared with Heaven's oldest and youngest - didn't have any success.

So it was just him and the caged nightingale in the palace - brick and mortar by then; his craving for gingerbread had faded with his sexual fantasies - when he felt Castiel get hit. Felt the bullet rip through his brother's all too mortal flesh and leave a bleeding, gaping wound in its wake.

The pain caught the archangel completely off guard, doubling him over, and it ricocheted around his grace for several agonising seconds before Gabriel realised it wasn't his own and was able to distance himself enough to straighten up.

He hadn't known the coup Lucifer had predicted was to be that night - had been trying to forget the prediction entirely, truth be told - and he _certainly_ hadn't realised just how much of himself he'd let Castiel walk away with from their last meeting, the particles of grace that had tangled into the younger angel's dull and shuttered light, trying to rebuild a strand of the heavenly web they'd known back home. Back when they'd been whole. Been a Host.

Before the Fall, when the fractures began; splintering out and cutting them apart, piece by piece, group by group, angel by angel.

Gabriel knew at once he should ignore the pull. He should sever the ill-formed link immediately and let whatever was playing out run its course as Lucifer had planned. But... it was so long since he'd found himself part of the front line. The last angel he'd cut off from was Michael, and before that his contacts had been archangels only, for centuries. To be one with a fledgling again, and fully interconnected, not just knowing Cas as background noise - like everyone had dropped to when he'd moved in with the pagans - was overwhelming.

He snapped his fingers.

***

There was blood everywhere in the dank office hallway Dean Winchester's soldiers had made their last stand. Blood and spit and flecks of bone. Dead bodies of the infected, mostly whole, scattered about.

Gabriel tried not to gag.

Lucifer looked on the Croats with no less disgust than he gave all humanity - just more imperfect, destructive bags of meat. But Gabriel had always found them unsettling. Screwing with the population he got - it was good teaching the fools hard lessons sometimes. Good... and fun. But making them mindless, drooling zombies? Where was the finesse in that? Where was the art? And what did it teach them really, beyond how to fear and how to die? No, a few little pokes and prods, a death here and a maiming there, and humanity might actually shape itself into something not entirely displeasing.

But then, Lucifer wasn't interested in making humans pleasing. Wasn't interested in humans at all...

As Gabriel stepped further in, sneakers squelching over the carpet, he found other bodies. Ones he recognised from Camp Chitaqua. Although some of them were so riddled with holes it was really only their makeshift military uniforms that identified them. Croats and guns - never a good combination.

They'd fought well though, the hunters. Not a single Croatoan alive on the whole floor. Plenty in the rest of the building, of course, but the immediate threat had been dealt with with vicious efficiency. Gabriel clicked his fingers again at his side, shutting, locking and warding all doors to the current level - a hoard of brain-dead monsters was the last thing he needed.

There was a cough down the far end, or, not a cough, a name. 'Risa...'

And there was Castiel, slumped against the wall in tattered jeans and a heavy black jacket. The shirt looked like it might have been the one he was wearing last time, but the mass of blood pouring onto it from his stomach made it hard to tell.

A slim, almost gaunt, woman was leaning over him, dark hair scraped back into a ponytail. Her shoulder was a mess - torn fabric spotted crimson from a wound that cut deep, but not a bullet. A bite mark. She was infected.

"Just do it!" she snapped. "I'm already losing control!"

Castiel took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. Nodded.

He lifted an arm and the silver of a gun flashed in his palm. His hand shook for a moment, although his face stayed calm, and he fired directly into the girl's forehead.

Her head snapped back from the impact, eyes glossing over instantly, but for a second her body held itself upright and the two of them seemed to stare at each other. Then her corpse folded backwards and thudded to the ground. Castiel closed his eyes and fell back against the wall, gun slipping from his fingers as his arm dropped to his side.

He didn't even look to his wound, just left it bleeding out, palms turning up as if in offering, a welcoming of death.

And the sight made something snap in Gabriel, old, familiar sparks flaring into life. He'd known plenty of wrath as an angel - a destructive force Michael had assured them was righteous and true. But it was the others, the 'heretics,' who'd taught him about rage - about that personal fire that might not be righteous but was ten times more fulfilling, a hundred times stronger, and all yours. Yours to control. Or yours to give in to, to be consumed by. Gabriel had considered himself a good student, he'd taken on board all the lessons the old ones had to teach about how to keep your powers and emotions in check, how to rule them so they didn't rule you, how to be independent and self-sufficient. But in the space of a second, less than a second, he lost all of that and let his anger take over. If Castiel wasn't trying anymore, then why should he offer the kid any better?

"Are you happy now, brother?" he shouted down the corridor. "Is this what you wanted?"

Castiel blinked his eyes open again slowly. He seemed to be finding it hard to focus and didn't recognise Gabriel until the archangel was almost on top of him. When he did his lips parted and spread out wide and he tipped his head back against the wall in a long, hollow laugh. Empty. The sound of someone facing the abyss and knowing there's no escape.

"Am I happy I'm _dying?_ " he gasped, trying to shake his head. The move made him flinch so he stopped. "Of course not. Of course this isn't what I wanted for my life. For the world..." He gave a wet cough and a spatter of blood coated his lips. Apparently Gabriel's appearance had galvanised him in some way, though, because he lifted a hand - slow, like it was made of lead - and wiped the stain away. "But I..." Bloodshot eyes fixed into the archangel's. "I stand by my decision."

Gabriel made a loud, impatient tutting sound and crouched down beside the bleeding angel.

"Even now you defend him?" he spat. "He's led you to your death."

Castiel shut his mouth and eyes and tried again to shake his head. It must have caused more pain but he persevered until he'd made his answer clear.  
  
"Dean..." he muttered, opening his eyes. It took a while for them to find Gabriel again, despite how close they were. "Dean did not lead me here. That was..." His breath came in pants, making his speech disjointed. "Lucifer's arrogance and need to control. Michael's lofty plans and failure to follow them through. Our lack of numbers and bad tactical decisions... mistakes... regrets..." His eyelids dropped again. "So many things, brought us to this... so many... but I..." His eyes snapped open this time and he grabbed at Gabriel's jacket, fingers twisting in a grip weaker than a child's. But there was such desperation in his gaze, such a need, that Gabriel felt his anger start to pull away. "I had such... hope. When he asked me to help... begged me... There was a fire in his eyes. Belief. Faith. And I chose... I chose what I thought was right. What I thought our f... our father would have wanted." Gabriel felt naked when his rage dispersed completely, leaving him not with someone he despised but a brother, whose life was ebbing away. It reminded him of that awful moment when Lucifer was struck down, but before he'd been sent to Hell, when all of them had to witness his agony. He wanted to flee, like he had back then, but Castiel's voice held him in a way the angel's hand couldn't. It was so passionate, suddenly. So alive. "And I saw us _win_ ," Castiel pressed, the hint of a smile - an honest, heartfelt smile - touching the corners of his lips. "I saw... humanity triumphant. I saw god in his eyes, Gabriel. Just for a moment..."

He broke off into more coughs, hand leaving Gabriel to catch the resulting droplets of blood.

Gabriel made to speak, then shook his head.

"You were wrong," he said eventually.

Castiel nodded through the remainder of his fit.

"Yes..." he panted, looking up. "But what did _you_ see, huh?" The question came out quickly and his voice and eyes grew sharp with it. "When he asked you, _demanded_ , that you follow him, what did you think would happen? My plans failed, yes, but at least I tried -"

"Yeah, like an ant trying to lift a mountain," Gabriel cut in. The words were scratchy and the archangel was surprised to find his mouth was dry. "You never had a chance."

"No. There was a chance," Castiel countered, but it wasn't the prelude to an argument. Instead his voice grew quieter. Resigned. "There were many. We... we missed them. Lost them. Always too late... But you..." His eyes narrowed. "Can you honestly say you saw your path leading anywhere but here?"

Gabriel was silent.

"So," Castiel continued, lips stretching out again, mocking. "Are you happy, brother? This is the fruit of your labour. Is it... what you wanted?" His breath hitched at the end and, for the first time since Gabriel's arrival, he did reach to his wound, clutching it on reflex as a visible wave of pain shook through him.

And just as suddenly Gabriel was reaching out too, dropping to his knees, fingers turning crimson as they slipped beneath Castiel's jacket to hold him still. He could feel the kid trembling under the touch and realised Castiel was in far more pain than he was letting on and shit, no.

He'd never wanted this.

He lifted his other hand to Cas' shoulder, fingers bunching up the fabric there to hold him more securely.

"I..." he choked, grace flexing. "I might be able to..."

Cas clutched at the hand over his side, pulling at Gabriel's fingers, which were already glowing a faint gold.

"Don't," he gasped. Gabriel stopped his attempt to heal at once, more out of shock at the request than anything. Castiel's eyes were dull when he lifted them. Tired. "It's over," he continued. "We knew we weren't coming back. Not this time. Even Dean."

"Then..." Gabriel started, lips curving down. "Then why come? Why fight?"

Castiel barked out another cold and brittle laugh and the sound cut through Gabriel like a knife, so sharp he couldn't understand how he'd survived it before, or then... maybe he did. Sounds got muffled passing through sand.

"Nothing else left for us..." Cas answered, eyes gazing beyond the archangel's shoulder. Gabriel thought of his nightingale and nodded. Nowhere to go. Maybe resurrecting the bird hadn't been the kindness he'd thought. Then Castiel's face crumpled, like a switch had been flicked. "I... I would have stayed with him," he muttered, voice catching with a different kind of pain. "To the end, I would have... but... Sam's his brother. He had to face him alone and -" He pitched forward, eyes pressing shut. "Argh!"

Gabriel caught him and swiftly pressed the younger angel to his chest, fitting Castiel's head into his collarbone, damp and greasy locks brushing his cheek. He lay a hand on the back of Castiel's neck, his other arm gripping round his shoulders, and let his grace bleed out. Not to cure, just giving peace.

"Be still," he whispered. "It'll... It'll be easier..."

Slowly, Castiel's breath evened out and he relaxed into Gabriel's arms, sighing long and deep in relief.

"Thank you," he whispered back, and Gabriel gripped tighter in response.

Of all angels, he was the one who'd known the lower ranks best. Out of necessity more than choice, at least initially, because he was the one tasked with delivering their orders. So it was him who'd watched them grow and learnt their names, him who'd sent them on assignments, often knowing they wouldn't be coming back. And he'd kept himself detached for a long time, he had, but you could only spend so long sending your family, brothers and sisters you knew intimately, to their deaths before it broke you, one way or another. Gabriel had opted to leave before that happened.

But as he held Castiel, felt his light draining away faster and faster, Gabriel remembered watching as the kid learnt to fly - not a single fall, not from this angel. He'd spent days, years, millennia - it was hard to quantify, time was immeasurable back then - patiently, _endlessly_ , watching the others' mistakes before so much a lifting a wing. And it had fucking paid off as well - a perfect flight first time. Not even _Michael_ had finished his first circuit without a stagger or two on the way.

Gabriel remembered it vividly. Remembered thinking _that kid's something special. He's going places. He's gonna make us proud._

"I don't even know where I'll go..." the Cas of the moment breathed against Gabriel's chest. The wet heat of it felt fleeting and fragile and Gabriel pressed his eyes closed as the wall around him crumbled, as hard and fast as Jericho.

"...maybe you'll find Dad," he offered, trying desperately to keep his thoughts from fire and brimstone. Although, the way things were, it probably didn't matter. Castiel had long since lost his ability to feel out the inner workings of other minds. Could barely keep a full grasp on his own...

Cas breathed quietly for a moment, each breath a little slower and softer than the last.

"I don't think so..." he said eventually. And then, a little while later, "Gabriel...?"

The plea was small but sharp, making the name a tremble, and Castiel's fingers dug into Gabriel's side along with it. Gabriel brushed his lips against the fledgling's brow on instinct, his hand smoothing down the other's hair as he shushed him softly under his breath. 'Shhh...'

It had no effect - Castiel tensed all over.

"I'm afraid."

He was gone before Gabriel could reply, sagging down the archangel's chest, head lolling against his shoulder.

Gabriel stared straight ahead at the wall's flaking paper, hold turning slack. Because it wasn't his brother he was holding, not anymore.

Nevertheless, after a second the hand at Castiel's neck curled in again, fingers digging into already cooling skin.

"Me too, kid."

***

Time and place lost all meaning for Gabriel after that.

There was a part of him that still felt the weight of Castiel's vessel in his arms, the heat and the stench of blood soaking through his shirt, but mostly he was cold. Not the pathetic, human notion of the feeling, skin exposed and shivering. No. Gabriel's cold was an absence. An emptiness. The coldness of a gaping, encroaching Nothing, consuming everything in its path.

Until a voice cut through it. Faint, but harsh and familiar. A remnant of time past that sounded like old tricks and the thrill of a worthy opponent.

The nostalgia quirked Gabriel's lips up before he even started to make sense of the words.

"Oh good god, you're not gonna tell me a bedtime story are you? My stomach's almost out of bile."

Gabriel frowned then. Because Castiel had willingly and fucking _heroically_ signed up for a suicide mission, damn it - Dean Winchester could at least have had the decency to do the same!

The archangel fought the urge to bolt to his feet long enough to lay Jimmy Novak tenderly down, then flew to the window. A quick touch melted the glass away and he looked down into the garden below to see Dean.

And Dean.

Gabriel blinked.

One of the Deans was dead, neck snapped like a twig.

The other was standing on the browning grass a few feet away, staring at Lucifer with tears in his eyes. Tears... and a little of something else. Something like hope. Like fire. Like the last five years had never happened.

Gabriel could have kicked himself when he figured it out. The aura of the other Dean, the living one, was bending and flexing like a mad thing, not just out of place, but out of _time_. This _was_ the Dean from five years ago, the Dean still stubborn enough to believe in his own foolhardy plans. The Dean Gabriel's little brother had just looked back to with a smile from his deathbed.

"Do you know why god cast me down?" Lucifer asked as Gabriel watched, not quite knowing what to make of the turn in events. "Because I loved him. More than anything."

_More than anything..._

The words seemed to echo and Gabriel turned his head as Lucifer continued - belittling humanity and god's praise of them in a diatribe the older angel had heard countless times before. His gaze trailed over Jimmy's broken body and found not even a vestige of Castiel's light left behind. It had been a dull glow at best the last few years, but it had been there, and in his own way Gabriel had valued it. More than he'd known. And the world seemed somehow less now it was gone. Far less than when Gabriel first realised Dad wasn't coming home.

But Lucifer had said _more than **anything**..._

"You're not fooling me, you know that?" Dean again. Rasping and in pain, but sure of himself as well, unafraid to face the Devil - the Devil in his brother's clothing - and speak his mind. "With this sympathy-for-the-devil crap. I know what you are."

Lucifer twisted his head the same time as his bother, both angels equally shocked by the audacity. Gabriel took a step closer to the window, hands gripping the ledge.

"What am I?"

"You're the same thing, only bigger," Dean spat. "The same brand of cockroach I've been squashing my whole life. An ugly, belly-to-the-ground, supernatural piece of crap. The only difference between them and you is the size of your ego."

Gabriel was only aware he was grinning when his cheeks started to ache. And shit, when had he last let himself grow physical enough for that? Not since his Trickster days, and oh how glorious had that first showdown been? Offering Dean those girls, bantering and, of course, having the last laugh in the end. Yeah, Dean Winchester had _got it_ \- the candy, the women, the just deserts the whole shebang. He was a player too, and Lucifer? His act just wasn't good enough.

Lucifer seemed to realise it as well because he gave a flat, resigned smile and for a moment, just a moment, Gabriel felt a warm rush flood through him at the thought that he _had_ tricked Dean Winchester, for a while. And Dean had appreciated it. 'I like your style' he'd said, once upon a time, finding in Gabriel a kindred spirit. Or a shared sense of humour, at least.

He hadn't realised it at the time, but Gabriel had missed that when they'd met last, had kinda hated seeing Dean stripped of that spark, hollowed out into nothing but a husk, ready for Michael to siphon into. Or... had he really been that far gone by then? Maybe that was just how Gabriel had assumed he'd be once the apocalypse kicked off. Dean had certainly had enough fire to rip the angel a new one in that warehouse, maybe Gabriel had just been too busy projecting Michael onto the guy, and avoiding the way little Sammy looked too much like a fucking mirror for his liking, to notice there was still plenty of _Dean_ knocking around too.

"I like you, Dean," Lucifer said eventually. "I get what the other angels see in you." Gabriel's smile dipped at that. He thought about Castiel's dying wish to have been with Dean at the end and couldn't help thinking, _no you don't_. "We'll meet again soon."

Lucifer turned to leave but Dean shouted after him.

"You better kill me now!"

Lucifer's jerk back and hesitant 'pardon?' was almost comical.

"You better kill me now. Or I swear, I will find a way to kill you. And I won't stop."

"I know you won't," Lucifer answered and Gabriel sensed a hint of impatience growing in his brother as he stepped forward. "I know you won't say yes to Michael either. And I know you won't kill Sam. Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up - here." He had a point, of course. And yet... _Can you honestly say you saw your path leading anywhere but here...?_ Gabriel couldn't help thinking Dean Winchester wasn't the only one with choices. "I win," Lucifer ended. "So, I win."

"You're wrong," Dean gasped, but his voice broke with the words. His first show of uncertainty. Such a contrast to Lucifer's arrogant self-assurance.

To what Gabriel remembered of Michael's.

And wow, where had that come from? When Gabriel thought about Michael he remembered warmth and strength and joy and majesty. But then... he remembered Lucifer like that too. Even as he watched his brother in the desolate cold, the world dark and dying around them, he thought of Lucifer like that.

_Take the log from your own eye..._

It made him wonder. All those times he'd gleefully ripped Dean's soul from his body for the sake of Sammy's reaction - how many of the kills had it been Michael's essence he'd pictured tearing apart? He'd only just learnt about The Plan back then, about who and what Sam and Dean really were, and the horror at the thought of watching Heaven's brightest and best face off against each other _again_ was still fresh in his mind. Was still leaving him reeling with the knowledge that it had been _Michael's_ idea this time, calculated and planned out to the last detail when, damn it, wasn't Michael supposed to be the compassionate one? The caring one? Wasn't he supposed to be their big brother and _look after_ them, not make plans to _murder_ his family just because he _could?_

Gabriel was so wrapped up in his thoughts he didn't notice Lucifer's second farewell to the displaced Dean, or Zachariah's prompt arrival to return the young McFly to his own time.

What he did notice was the soft flutter of wings close behind him.

Gabriel didn't move as Lucifer took in the scene - the blood and destruction and Castiel's empty vessel. He didn't know what kind of reaction he was expecting, but it wasn't the cool, collected comment that followed.

"Well. Just us now, Gabriel. What do you say? Shall we go rule the world?"

Gabriel turned slowly, one hand keeping its grip on the windowsill for support. His palm felt wet, still bloody, and he noticed for the first time just how soaking his clothes were, practically marinated in crimson.

Lucifer was smiling, face a grotesque parody of Sam's easy joy, Castiel's blood pooling round his leather shoes without leaving so much as a single stain.

Gabriel shuddered and stepped back and back and back...

***

"Gabriel?" Lucifer repeats through Nick's chapped lips, a dry hand reaching out, blue veins showing between the knuckles. "Shall we?"

It's a while before Gabriel recognises the alley and the thriving city beyond it. His mind is still on Dean Winchester's defiance. On Castiel's broken shell.

He chuckles at himself, disbelieving.

"No," he answers.

Lucifer's smile drops along with his hand.

"I'm getting tired of that answer," he sighs.

Gabriel's lips stay curved.

"You should be proud," he quips. "You started it."

Lucifer stares blankly back and shakes his head.

"First Castiel, now you," he says, tone low, like a lament. Gabriel notices he pronounces Cas' name wrong, putting the inflections in all the wrong places so it sounds like Cas- _teel_. "Why defy me? All of us are outcasts. Of all angels, we are truly family."

"No," Gabriel says again, sharper this time. His body tenses as he steels himself. "We're not. Truth is... none of us are family to you. We never were. You've always been alone."

There's a moment of silence as the two of them face each other, still as statues. Lucifer's gaze blazes, but Gabriel doesn't look away.

"Do you really think Michael will take you back?" Lucifer asks eventually. A new tactic.

Gabriel gives a wry smile.

"Never," he admits and realises he's known this all along, he knew the second he left home that he was never going back. Would never be allowed.

And Lucifer had said 'more than anything...'

In his whole existence Gabriel's loved nothing and no-one more than these two opposing forces. But in that moment he understands that, he kind of hates them too.

"You're as bad as each other, you know that?" he adds. "Always fighting for Daddy's attention, trying to be the better son. Well you know what? I'm _done_ being your go-to guy. I don't know what Dad thinks of you and frankly, I don't give a shit. Maybe you _are_ the perfect son. Or maybe Michael is."

He thinks of Castiel, clinging to him. Of Sam, spending months single-mindedly hunting down a Trickster just so he can beg at its feet. Of Dean, turning his back on everything he believes in and lip-locking with a demon at a crossroads.

"All I know is, you're lousy brothers."

The words stretch and flex around them, looming like an ancient evil. And yet Gabriel is relieved to be free of them, at last.

"So screw you _and_ your stupid war - I don't want any part of it!"

Gabriel doesn't expect a reaction, so he's not disappointed when Lucifer doesn't give one beyond a brief nod and a clipped 'I see...'

When Gabriel turns to leave the alleyway, however, Lucifer is suddenly _right there_ , fingers digging into the older angel's shoulder.

"That's a shame," he says, leaning in. His voice is sickly sweet, too much even for a Trickster's taste. "Because... despite what you say, we _were_ brothers, once. And I _really_ didn't want to have to do this..."

Gabriel pictures Cas again as the world turns white and a searing pain cuts through him. The weak grip of his fingers. The frightened 'I don't even know where I'll go.' And he thinks that wherever Cas ends up, he'll be joining him very soon.

 

~ **fin** ~


End file.
